As I have said several time I am new to Bettas. I have always kept Cichlids in the past. I bought a male crown tail the other day and so far he seems to be doing really well in a 5.5 gallong tank. There is 1 snail and 4 ghost shrimp with him at the moment.

Please dont flame me for asking this, but I have read very conflicting information.

Can I keep a male and female in the same tank? I have seen several people say yes if it is done properly and have even seen videos of them in tanks together and I have seen several people say no it never works as well. Then there seems to be a middle of the road opinion that says it depends entirely on your specific Betta.

I have been watching Stormaggedon and he seems very docile. He doesnt pay any attention to the shrimp or snail at all ( I know they look nothing like a Betta). I heard you can get a good gauge on temperment by holding a mirror up to them. So I dangled a clean mirror in the tank and he stared at himself for a long time and didnt even flare up once. I keep my nails very brightly colored and he hasnt shown any interest in those either. Like I said he seems ver docile to me. Someone here also said that they beleive he is prolly fairly young.

Okay so that is all the info I have at the moment. Are there other ways to see how he would tolerate another Betta? Like maybe a fancy guppy? Are there ways to get it to succesfully work? For instance getting a similiar sized female or something? Or maybe taking them both out of the tank and putting them in at the same time so there is no alreayd established territory like you do with Cichlids? I do know that people say I will need lots of plants. Maybe having a back up tank in case it doesnt work?

Again please dont flame or hate me. I have seen very conflincting information and that is why I am asking BEFORE I do it.

Very rare. Most females will drop eventually. However bettas should be kept in separate containers.

I completely agree. the occasion in which a female betta becomes what is called egg bound and perishes is a very rare occurance. While the personlity, aggession and how passing any tyoe of fish, including bettas will have a subtancially large effect in what type of fish that it can harmoniously co-exist with, typically male and female bettas don't work together and are known to fight to the death which is why your situation should only occur on accident, or during a breeding period as the majority if the time they will figh, and taking that .01 percentage chance can potencially kill, cause illness or stress your fish out to the extreme which In My Opinion, isnt worth it take the risk. Aggression towar other bettas concerning male/females situation usually occurs 1-2 weeks after introduction, as while they are just settling in they are already stressed and will sometimes show a minimal amount of aggresion towards the other fish but as they settle in and get used to their particular surroundings they will become aggresive and territorial, attacking other fish with similar characteristics such as other labyrinth fish, other bettas, colorful fish, long finned fish, large fish, and colorful top dwelling fish.

I had a HM male hanging in my sorority tank in a breeders' net while I wormed everyone. The suction cap holding the net failed and when I found him maybe an hour later, he was barely alive with every single fin torn down to his body.

He died later that night.

I would never house a male even with a single female. Females can be just as territorial and aggressive as males and if your male is long-finned he is going to be pretty much a sitting duck.

I house mine in divided tanks and have never ever had a female become egg-bound. My males generally prefer having female company (on the other side of the divider) as it gives them something to do.

This damage was done by a female in a failed breeding attempt. I expected the female to be beat up, not the other way around. He fins regrew in a few weeks and looked great till he started nom noming on them again.

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I have seen very conflincting information and that is why I am asking BEFORE I do it.

I have also read in several aquarium books that is it OK to keep male and female together in as small as a 5 gallon and I am sure there are plenty of people who have taken that advice

As a general rule of thumb, most people - especially petstore employees - are clueless when it comes to bettas...never trust them without a 2nd opinion. I had a petco employee tell me that in order to breed bettas, I need to put one male with 3 females. I tried to tell her that wouldn't work but she insisted she was correct because she breeds fish. I don't know what species she breeds but I was pretty sure its not bettas.

You can keep several females together though. If you plan on going that route, do a lot of research first as certain requirements need to be met, and even then there is no guarantee it will be successful. As you can see, females can be just as aggressive as the males.